Vodafone Spain is currently exploring the acquisition of the retail business of Adamo, a telecom company specialized in rural areas and owned by the French fund Ardian. As elEconomista.es has learned, the Paris-based firm is seeking the highest bidder for its assets in the residential segment, initially valued at over 300 million euros. On the contrary, network assets and wholesale services (Adamo Wholesale) They are not currently on the sales window.despite the fact that its valuation would be around one billion euros.
The same sources also indicate that the operator owned by Zegona is analyzing the operation with interest since, in this way, it would reinforce its commercial footprint with one of the few opportunities for inorganic growth that the domestic telecommunications market currently offers. For now, Ardian has already contacted the main players in the market, through the investment bank Nomurawith the aim of exploring the sliced sales of your company. The same proposal has also been extended to Telefónica, Masorange and Digi, although in these last companies with little expectations of success, according to the same sources.
Although Adamo does not share its number of clients, the analysts consulted estimate that the company’s portfolio now directed by Carlos Ávila is around 210,000 subscribers. With that magnitude, the valuation for each Adamo user would be close to 1,400 euros, between three and four times more than the average market valuation. Such a disproportion is due to the greater economic attractiveness of a resident in rural areas compared to another in urban areas, since the latter are exposed to continuous changes of provider, due to high competition and volatility. On the contrary, subscribers concentrated in rural areas are often captive to the single operator that provides the serviceswith no room to migrate their services to other connectivity providers.
3.7 million homes
In addition to the aforementioned 210,000 Adamo clients, the operator in rural areas has retail coverage in 3.7 million real estate units, most of them located in sparsely populated areas, including the 91,000 properties passed through fiber acquired from its rival Finetwork last summer in exchange for more than 15 million euros. During the first nine months of the year alone, Adamo has extended its own network to nearly 1.2 million homes and offices throughout the country.
Under the control of Ardian, Adamo has been the first Spanish operator to offer 1,000 Mbps fiber optic services in the country, with more than 10,000 kilometers of its own network. It also maintains agreements coverage with more than 250 operatorsin order to offer coverage to 2,400 municipalities, of which 80% of them are in towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants.
Currently, Adamo provides convergent telecommunications services (landline, mobile, on-demand TV and high-speed Internet access with its own infrastructure) in 14 communities: Catalonia, Cantabria, Castilla La Mancha, Andalusia, Valencian Community, Navarra, La Rioja, Galicia, Madrid, Castilla León, Extremadura, Asturias, Murcia and the Basque Country.
Regarding mobile coverage, Adamo rents the MásMóvil network – from the Masorange group – to offer 4G in practically the entire territory, although for now without 5G connectivity. Vodafone, Adamo and Ardian have declined to comment on this operation.
Ardian bought Adamo three years ago from the Scandinavian firm EQT for one billion euros. With this reference figure, any company transaction promises to far exceed this amount, possibly placing it above 1.3 billion.
Vodafone Spain has shown the vocation to put up a fight against its rivals throughout the country, including emptied Spain, so Adamo’s clientele would help in that objective. However, the company run by José Miguel García Among its immediate challenges is the reduction of a debt of 4,000 million euroscoming from the acquisition of the Spanish subsidiary of the Vodafone group.
Other sources have assured elEconomista.es that the eventual purchase of Adamo has rested on the table of Telefónica, without this operator showing special interest in inorganically increasing its market share of fiber optics by revenue, currently 37.7%, with more than 5.6 million fixed superconnectivity customers.
The French fund financed the acquisition of Adamo in two tranches, one in September 2021, for an amount of 600 million euros; and another in June 2023, for 350 million euros, then with the option to extend the credit by another 50 million. In this last operation, 11 entities participated, including the Official Credit Institute, with financial support from ING and Societé Generale and legal consultancies Allen & Overy Clifford Chance.
Among other incentives, Adamo is one of the winners of the Único call for the last four years, as well as the recent new generation broadband program (PEBA-NGA), financed by the Spanish state and the EU. This plan to combat the digital divide is endowed with 143 million, between public capital (98 million) and private capital (45 million), the latter with Adamo’s own funds. This injection of capital is allowing the telecom company to extend its fiber optic coverage to 312,000 homes in emptied Spain.
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